Mandolin Rain
by Bob J Montonelli
Summary: A Lost Boys fanfic...following the idea that horn does not kill vampires. A sequel of sorts, involving David and an original character, Raven. Please note, this is SLASH Raven is 15.5 years old.
1. Finding

It's dark here. Moonlight slides over white-washed wooden  
gravemarkers like quicksilver, the breeze unnaturally cool and damp.  
The posts are bent and crosspieces hang askew like an old man's teeth,  
the flesh below putrid and blackened. The boy hides deep in this  
place where the holy and unholy meet, where life and death intertwine  
as one. It shouldn't be this cold, he thinks, not in California, even  
if it is near the coast. But he is from the north, so what does he  
know? He reads the markers nearby in the moon's faint glow.  
ROGER SEMINOLE 1930-1991 BELOVED HUSBAND  
CODY MACKINTOSH 1970-1981 REST IN PEACE  
KAITLIN O'MALLEY 1980-1985 WE PRAYED FOR YOUR RETURN  
He shudders and turns away. He wonders how the children died.  
Disease, abduction. He has seen faded posters all over the Santa  
Clara boardwalk for missing persons. Some are many years old, nearly  
all are at least 3 years past. He doubts those people will come back.  
Yet somehow, he doesn't care.  
A footstep startles him, and he turns. A shadow against a  
hundred other shadows slips by like black lightning. He hears  
something like soft chirping, a sound he has heard before when  
visiting his uncle in Texas near the caves. It is the sound of bats.  
Strange that he had not seen any around before, but then, he had been  
on the boardwalk and bats cannot hunt easily amid the tall stands of  
lights and shifting objects. Here it is wilder, safer for creatures  
to find their prey.  
Another footstep, the crack of a twig like a gunshot in this  
empty place.  
"Who's there?" He asks more boldly than he feels.  
Silence but for ragged breathing and the dragging footsteps of  
a bipedal. He stands, looking in the direction of a too-black shadow.  
Eyes like blue ice glint brightly. He smells a stench like boiled  
blood and stale sweat.  
A gaunt, young-looking man steps out from the shadows. His  
face cannot be more than twenty, but his brow creases with the weight  
of centuries. He wears a heavy, long coat, and is dressed like the  
typical California punk--white-blonde hair and one dangling earring.  
"I am here." 


	2. Trusting

"Who's you?" The boy backs up, shivering in the sudden cold. The  
wind whirls up, tossing leaves like children on a trampoline. He  
clutches his coat more tightly around himself, the leather squeaking  
slightly. The smell of polished hide comforts him.  
The figure limps forward, smiling in a distant and gentle way.  
"David." He does not show his teeth, and this worries the boy.  
Something about the way the edge of his mouth presses out is odd, not  
precisely human. The stench of death is high and strong, overpowering  
even his jacket. "And you?"  
The boy does not respond, frowning suspiciously.  
"Come now, is it not a custom of humans to introduce  
themselves?" The man's voice is a low, velveteen purr.  
"You're not human." The boy whispers hoarsely.  
The smile fades and drops like a flower under the frost, and  
an angry light lashes outward in those albino-blue eyes. The strange  
man frowns, eyes the boy with his own suspicious. Despite his obvious  
anger, the dusty-pale skin does not flush.  
"You are a smart boy." The smile slips up, oil on water.  
"You are different."  
The boy thinks for a moment. Thinks that this man--if that's  
what he is--isn't like his mother, his brother, his teachers. Perhaps  
he can be trusted, the boy thinks.  
"I'm Raven." He says quietly, patiently meeting David's  
inhuman gaze. David smiles widely, and four sharp, white points are  
visible. Fangs, yes, but the smile is less predatory, more welcoming  
than he is used to. He is not often a party to gentility, and it  
almost spooks him.  
"Raven, Raven...the clever one you are. Come and follow me,  
hm?" The voice is sleek and soft as a mink stole, the utterance of  
liquid promises like the man who runs the carnival booth. But it is  
enticing, and Raven knows how fast he can run--faster than this  
stranger, he hopes.  
He is led down the beaten path between the centuries  
old-stones and blocks of crumbling mortar, past mausoleum doors that  
scream injustice in the wind. The leaves and twigs crunch underfoot,  
and flowers at fresh graves smell fleshy, too-sweet and all-dead.  
They come to the railroad tracks, and Raven pauses. He knows this  
place, feels danger and heat and the pounding, sweaty scent of tar and  
charred wood. He has seen the trains go wailing by like banshee  
lovers sweeping past imperiled man, throwing sticks, rasping and  
cawing in a jealous old-woman rage. David is out at the middle of the  
railway bridge, the smoke rising ethereal around him, his legs lost in  
its fragile gray blanket. He turns, and frowns curiously.  
"Well, young Raven? Aren't you coming?"  
"The train, David..." he says worriedly. The train has begat  
much danger to him in the past. It killed his sister when they played  
along its ties, chewed her with its iron death and burned her with its  
searing, coal-wrought tongue. He does not fear death, but fears that  
his new friend may find more than he bargained for along the fragile  
iron strips. "David...the ties..." he can feel the vibration in his toes.  
"Come with me, Raven. Fly as your namesake does."  
"David--"  
Faint but unmistakable, the howl of a train. Raven is five  
feet out onto the bridge, and the sound comes from behind him. He  
must go to David to escape.  
"David it's coming..."  
"Then follow me." David shrugs. Raven steps further outward,  
terrified of the losing his footing and sliding through the gaps in  
the ties. Ten feet now. Five more and he will be able to touch  
David's arm. He steps, and the bridge starts to shiver as though  
sensing his fear.  
"David, the train!"  
"Trust me, Raven."  
The boy looks wildly back and forth, between the pale, fanged  
man, and the ever-brightening light of the train's headlamp. The  
tracks tremble. Six feet more. He throws himself another two and  
grips David's waist like a dying man. He stares in morbid fascinating  
at the oncoming freight hauler. The bridge begins to truly shake now.  
"David!" He whimpers, nearly in tears. The man shakes his  
head, and whispers for him to hold on.  
Then he jumps. 


	3. Becoming

It is extraordinary.  
Raven feels the blast of air as the train goes by, but not the  
dragging sense of falling, and he opens his eyes to see the ground  
rushing by below them, and clings more tightly to this ever-stranger  
man.  
They soon set down, and a soothing voice keens in his head,  
and a hand brushes his hair. Raven looks about, at ruined splendor  
and hanging lace, and faint moonlight streaming in through the  
ceiling. A dessicated fountain dominates the room, ringed by several  
dilapidated couches and armchairs.  
"Welcome to my home." David purrs.  
  
David watches Raven inquisitively, watches him explore the grand  
chamber, staring in every direction, overwhelmed by size and sense.  
He is amused by the boy's curiousity, at his investigation of the  
fountain in particular--he climbs across the sleek, salt-and-pepper  
marble, slides from spout to spout, prodding the openings of the  
pipes.  
"It's beautiful..."  
"It's mine, now."  
Raven jumps down, looks around at the messy bed-alcoves  
half-hidden by sheer off-white curtains.  
"Where are the others?"  
David stiffens, eyes him. "Others?"  
Raven shrugs, gestures behind him. "The beds..."  
David does not respond, but looks beyond the boy to the hanging  
rope about the entrance, where the moonlight leaks into the cavern,  
pale as a fish's belly. Raven catches his eye, and sees the acidic  
yellow-white of grief eating through the tropically blue facade. He  
knows that look, and knows the pain that comes with it. He touches  
David's hand briefly, unsure of himself.  
"They died?"  
David nods.  
"Were they nice?"  
A faint, wistful smile. "Yes. They were my brothers. You  
would've liked them, I think." He still stares forward, as if  
watching a movie only he can see.  
"My sister died, too." Raven says, not seeking pity, only  
trying to assuage the pain he knows David must feel--he has heard that  
many hands make light the work, and perhaps this works on grief as  
well. "When she was little...a train hit her. At the funeral they  
kept trying to get me to stay outside, and I didn't know why."  
"You were young, little bird."  
"But you're not."  
"No."  
"They were like you, your brothers?"  
"You mean, they were vampires?" The elder huffs slightly.  
"Yes. They were. And they were killed--murdered."  
Raven sits in an armchair, his chains and buckles clinking. He  
looks tired more than anything, but is curious about this new friend.  
"Why did you talk to me?"  
"I've been watching you, little bird. You're different. You  
seek out the strange, the macabre. And you are clever. I saw you  
elude the guards."  
"Yeah? Well, they=re fat and slow. And old. It's not too  
hard."  
"Still. You kept your eye out, even in the crowd." David pulls  
up another armchair and sits across from Raven, watching him with  
those pure-ice eyes. His face seems to hover between innocence and a  
sense of ancient darkness. Raven, rather than being afraid, is  
intrigued. "Raven, little bird, I want you to join me."  
"Join you?" The boy cocks his head much like his namesake.  
"Be like me, Raven...I'm so lonely."  
"Be a vampire..." He looks upwards, frowning and thinking.  
David gives him a pleading look, shields dropping in one  
desperate moment, grasped at like a dying man gropes for God.  
Raven closes his eyes, and a half-smile dusts his lips,  
confectioner's sugar on a sweet tea-cake. "Be like you...I'd never have  
to go back...never have to run away again..." he opens them again, looks  
at David, and the smile turns to one of sudden, relieved realization.  
"You...you'd take me in?"  
"Of course, little bird."  
A look of dazed bliss crosses his features. "Family...yes, I  
will. I will be like you, if even just for that."  
David pauses, then grins broadly, his laughter like ripples in  
a velvet blanket. Raven can feel it in his brain, its soft, warm  
vibration, and for the first time in a long time, he feels safe. It  
has been only a few hours since he met this new friend, and already he  
feels as though he has known him for months. The vampire reaches  
over, and takes a glittering glass bottle from behind his chair. Even  
in the heat, it does not sweat and Raven knows the syrupy redness  
inside is no sports drink. He steadies himself as images of heat and  
blood and shrieking iron bellow through his consciousness. He reaches  
out a shaking hand to the uncapped bottle, mouth settled in a bravely  
grim line. The glass is warm to the touch, and seems to pulse.  
Licking lips suddenly gone dry as deadwood, he slugs the liquid back.  
In that instant he feels something like an electric shock fire  
through his body, but without the pain. The taste of it is all too  
familiar; it is the metallic richness of blood, oily and like nothing  
else on earth. It is still hot. He drinks long and deep, until he  
cannot drink any more, and gasps for breath.  
And David watches, and smiles at him.  
"Well done, my little bird. Well done." 


	4. First Blood

Raven wipes the escaping trickles from his mouth with his  
jacket sleeve, and grins.  
"You feel all right, little bird?"  
Gasping a little, he nods. "Yes, yes...better than before,  
actually."  
"Then come...I will take you for a ride, and we will rule the  
boardwalk underworld."  
"A ride? How d'you mean?" Raven asks.  
David leads him outside, and shows off to him a lean and  
gleaming beast of steel and fiberglass. It is like a cheetah, and  
Raven gasps and strokes its finely polished hide.  
"It's beautiful...how does she ride?"  
"Amazingly. It's like riding a cloud, little bird. Maybe  
someday you will have your own."  
"I remember...before my mom died, she'd take me to BMX and  
motocross races...she loved it, even though she was too sick to  
ride. She said it made her feel alive."  
"Then I chose well. A wild boy who loves to ride and is  
willing to be free..." David laughs and swings a leg over the  
bike. "Coming?"  
"Duh." The boy rolls his eyes and springs up behind David,  
wrapping his arms around a narrow, powerful waist. He rests his head  
against David's back, taking in the smell of sweat and leather, and  
something else, like gasoline and blood.  
"Hang on, little bird, or you may end up flying." He kicks  
the metal steed into action, and they take off, up a steep and rocky  
trail, and through a misty woodland. The wind whips by, throwing  
Raven's jacket out like the wings of his namesake. David howls for  
joy as they pick up speed along a stretch of deserted, moonlit  
beach. The sun is long gone by now, as are the people. They roar up  
the steps, and David cuts the engine just across from a small comic  
book shop.  
"You see that, young protege?"  
"Yeah..."  
"Those two. The two who work there, they killed my  
brothers. And nearly killed me. They are our enemies, little bird.  
Don't ever let them see you. I cannot make the same mistakes  
again."  
"Ok." Shivering a little--already he feels the sickly dread  
of persecution thicken in his belly--Raven resettles himself against  
David's back, and they take off.  
Sometime later they stop again, between a dilapidated fish n'  
chips bar and an eerily silent carousel.  
"Do you smell that, my little bird?"  
He turns his nose to the wind, catching on it the scent of  
low tide, of wood and smoke, and then something else--something that  
seems so obvious he knows he should've known it before. And then it  
comes to him. He can smell blood, pumping away in human veins.  
"Blood..." his mouth begins to water hopelessly, and his  
stomach contracts with a sudden, desperate need.  
"That's right, little bird. Right there on the carousel, a  
homeless man sleeps. And he's all yours."  
Slowly Raven gets off the bike. "David, what if he's got a  
knife? Or a gun?"  
"That's the beauty of what we are, Raven. We can't die. We  
can be hurt--but we heal. And I will be here, my little bird. Right  
behind you."  
"Ok, then." He trusts David to back him up, just in case.  
He is less afraid of killing--after all, he is desperately hungry--  
than of being harmed himself. Carefully he climbs up onto the frozen  
carousel, sniffing for his dinner--ah, there. Just in the shadows,  
and all alone. Filthy, yes, but food is food.  
After all, it's what's on the inside that counts.  
He feels the jolting pain again, and in a sudden burst of  
energy, he lunges forward. He feels his canines jut suddenly  
downward, and then in the next instant crush into soft, sweet human  
flesh. The man jolts and gurgles out a cry, but Raven has him  
pinned. He drinks long and deep and sucks hard for every drop. He  
feels it coat and ease the pain, and it is so gloriously sweet and  
syrupy on his tongue that he forgets where he is, who he is, just for  
this moment of being.  
"Hey! Hey you kid!"  
A piercing voice to preternatural ears. He turns, and  
someone is there, a flashlight straight into agonizingly sensitive  
eyes. A guard, a human, he smells it.  
"David! David help!" He turns and David is there, right  
there, at his back like he promised, and very nearly picks him up and  
puts him on the bike, then swings up himself.  
"Hang on, Raven."  
They seem to fly across the boardwalk, as sirens pierce the  
air. The pain in his ears and eyes numbs him, and he bites through  
his lip with new-gained fangs. He grips David's waist with hard  
terror, gunshots from a hundred feet away sounding like they're next  
to his ear.  
And suddenly, they stop.  
"David?" They're at the edge of a cliff, looking over to the  
thunderous black water below. "David, what now?"  
"We fly."  
"What?" Raven stares. "But I can't--"  
"You're like me, Raven. If I can, so can you. It's easy.  
Just jump--and then think fly. You'll be fine, and anyway," he  
smirks a little, "I'm right here."  
Raven gulps. There's really no choice. Stay and be caught  
by the police, or jump and...well, hopefully fly.  
"I'll go first, all right? But quickly, they'll follow the  
cycle tracks." David backs up, backs up, then off the cliff, and  
Raven cries out in instinctive fear. But he floats, evenly and  
easily.  
Cautiously the boy comes to the edge. He looks down at the  
water, then looks up at David, setting his jaw. Don't look down,  
they say. So he won't. And he jumps, thinking he'll fall, praying  
to fly and--  
He does. He floats beside David, a little dazed, but happy  
he isn't going to be food for some pacific sealife.  
"Come now, little bird. Follow me home, and we'll be safe."  
David dives, and Raven follows, and it is not far down the  
cliffs till they come to the steel fence and massive debris pile that  
mark the entrance. Raven sets down on the pockmarked sand with a  
heavy thump, and David follows with a more graceful landing. Inside,  
Raven shakes.  
"David...why didn't you smell them? Why didn't I?"  
He shakes his head. "I don't know, Raven...they've never  
patrolled before. Oh, hells...I nearly lost you little bird, yet  
I've only just found you." David holds Raven gently, staring at  
nothing. "I'm sorry, little bird...I am. No hard feelings, eh?"  
"No...but my ears still hurt." He smiles shakily, and David  
chuckles.  
"Preternatural senses...an advantage and disadvantage all in  
one. It's a human world, everything is loud, bright, smelly...time  
has blunted their senses, little bird."  
"David?"  
"Hm?"  
"Why do you call me that? Little bird'?"  
"Your name, Raven...and you strike one as being small and  
quiet. But clever, like those blackbirds, you know, the ones in the  
poem..."  
"Four and twenty blackbirds?" Raven laughs, then flomps down  
onto the creaking, nastily plaid couch. "Interesting choice."  
"You mind it?"  
"Not really...it makes me feel...I don't know, cared for? My  
mother named me Raven you know. For the trickster."  
"And so it suits you, my clever little bird." David sits  
next to him on the couch, wraps an arm around his shoulders. "You  
realize, though, that now you are totally like me? My little bird,  
you must never again let the sun touch you."  
"But I could look at it?"  
"At a ray, maybe. But it would hurt you."  
  
Raven nods. "I see." He looks at his watch. "Christ, it's  
almost sunrise!"  
David yawns. "So it is. You are tired, I expect?"  
"Yeah." Raven stretches, his worn t-shirt rising over his  
belly.  
"Come and rest." David gets up, holding aside the curtain in  
front of one of the beds--a well-done up pile of quilts and pillows.  
Raven smiles, and flops out onto the bed, giggling as it  
squishes and conforms to his body. He sits up, pulls off his boots,  
and then gives a sudden squawk. His feet are heavy, malformed claws,  
the big toe opposable to the others.  
"Yes...I forgot about that. It helps when hanging upside  
down." David shrugs, then sits down beside him. "You mind if I join  
you, little bird?"  
"No, no, go ahead." Raven folds his legs up under him,  
watching David throw off his coat, shirt, and boots. His feet are  
similarly clawed, he notices. His body is pale, but sleekly muscled--  
he is stronger than his slim appearance would have one believe, like  
a panther. David lies down beside his protégé, his son and brother,  
wraps him gently in his arms. Raven does not protest.  
"You are tense, little bird...do I scare you?"  
"No, it's not that...it's just I'm not used to it. I mean, I'm  
not sure I should, or what you want from me or--"  
David presses a finger to the boy's frantic lips. "Shh. I  
understand, little bird. Lie with me and dream. You're like me,  
Raven. You have my blood in you. You will understand." He whispers  
soothingly.  
Trusting David's advice, Raven nestles down against the elder  
vampire's startlingly warm body, and soon dozes off. 


	5. Learning

In the earliest early-morning hours, the police find the bike and  
impound it. But they cannot find  
evidence of the two riders, except for broken twigs, and the trampled  
grass at the cliff edge. They  
suspect that the fugitives are dead, and return to their safe, warm  
beds.  
But by morning the news abounds. Homeless man killed in brutal  
attack. Boardwalk hobo  
slaughtered. Elderly man murdered, police suspect local youth.  
The vampire's enemies wake to headlines that slash with the  
curving fortitude of a scimitar.  
Alan and Edgar read one newspaper together, each holding one side.  
Their parents sleep, and they  
plan.  
The vampire and his blood-son-brother sleep together, rolled away  
from the offensive golden  
rays of dawn and daylight. Once or twice Raven or David seizes from a  
nightmare, but does not wake.  
The rays grow long, and go out of reach of the cavern.  
As the sun sets, Raven, newly initiated, is the first to open his  
eyes. The world is a grey-tan  
blur, until he blinks away the haze of sleep. He is momentarily lost,  
and in his scrabbling haste he lands  
a hand onto David's belly, causing a squeaky grunt of annoyance.  
"You're awake." He mumbles. Never a morning person as a human,  
he is not a twilight person  
as a vampire. He rubs his eyes and rolls over. "Good."  
Raven can hear the surf pounding outside, hushing and rushing  
along the iron barrier of debris.  
His ears have stopped ringing from their paint-stripping agony the  
night before, and he feels rested and  
lively. It is not at all a bad sensation--he has slept a good 12  
hours or more, unusual but apparently just  
perfect to his newly vampiric physiology.  
"So, David...what're we doing tonight?"  
"First, we get dressed. Then, we find food. And not blood, not  
yet. We eat human food first."  
"Good. I'm hungry."  
"Hmm." He smiles indulgently, swings out of bed to find the  
clothes he cast off the night before.  
Raven follows, snatching up boots and socks and sitting on an armchair  
to put them on.  
"So what do you do? At night, I mean? Just wander?"  
"For a long time I have been...healing. In my last battle I was  
hurt badly. Otherwise...I have  
hunted occassionally, but I've only caught a few animals."  
"Wait...you mean, you haven't had a human's blood...?"  
"Not in over a year."  
"David, you should've told me. I--we--we could've shared that  
guy's blood. I would've let you  
have at him."  
David smiles, but shakes his head. "No. No, my little bird, it  
had to be your kill. Yours alone."  
The smile becomes a smirk. "Besides, it is bad manners to share a  
kill with one who is not your mate."  
Raven lowers his head quickly, fumbling for words. "I...uhh...I  
didn't know that." He knows it  
sounds stupid, but it's all he can think to say.  
The elder laughs, and strokes the boy's cheek lightly. "Now you  
do. No hard feelings, right?"  
"Heh. Right.'  
They go, and fly high above the crashing, angry blackness of the  
ocean. They set down just  
outside the boardwalk grounds, careful not to be seen or heard--except  
when Raven lands, and it's  
more of a crash. David rolls his eyes and helps him up.  
They traipse the boardwalk, David chuckling as he tries to keep  
up with Raven's peculiarly  
intelligent curiousity. They get to the carousel, and Raven motions  
him over to several gaudily  
decorated picnic tables. Raven then opens his coat, and begins  
setting things out on the table. All  
different types of food that he has wheedled, stolen, or found. All  
is fresh, and depending, hot or cold.  
"You *are* a clever boy, my little bird." David is laughing so  
hard his eyes water. "Clever as  
any."  
Raven beams with childish pride. "You like it?"  
"A fine spread, little bird."  
The boy tosses a plastic fork to the other vampire. "Well,  
what're we waiting for then?" He  
digs in ravenously.  
David chuckles.  
"Wha?" Raven asks indignantly, a cascade of noodles hanging from  
his mouth.  
"You have attrocious manners, little bird. Maybe the humans are  
fortunate that pictures of the  
man you killed were not published."  
He slurps the noodles down. "I guess. But...I was just hungry.  
Really desperate. Is  
everyone's first kill like that?"  
"Oh, many, yes. It's a new sensation--I think you'll learn to  
handle it your own way. My  
brother, Marko, never quite did--he always leapt into the fray, taking  
out the eyes first and ripping  
everything in sight."  
"Helluva guy." Raven says without looking up. "What was your  
first kill like?"  
"Oh...much different than yours. It was...I think it's now  
nearly...two hundred fifty years ago. I  
stopped counting. But no vampire ever forgets their first kill,  
little bird. I was twenty-two years old  
when I was first turned."  
"I'd wondering...so you were born...?"  
"1718, something like. I was turned by a man named Maxwell, a  
man I thought at the time to  
be my savior--from church and sermons and everything else in a young  
puritan's life. I came, originally,  
from Plymouth, you know. A horrible place in the 18th century, not  
particularly pleasant now.  
Anyway, he had turned me, and I won't go into that--such things I  
would not force on you, my little  
bird--but one night, as a crept beside him in the woods, I felt a  
seizing up in me like nothing else--"  
"So did I! I felt that! Like someone holding your heart in a  
vice and twisting, oh it hurt!"  
"So it occured to me. I was young, and frightened, and I took  
off. I came upon another man at  
the edge of the wood, and ripped his neck open. Finally, my pain was  
eased. But--I found in the  
morning that I'd killed the town preacher. I woke in Maxwell's  
hideaway, my clothes crusted with  
blood. I couldn't go back to human life again."  
"Wow. That's really...I don't know...not exactly terrible,  
but...I get the feeling Maxwell sort of  
used you for his own means."  
"He was my master. He was two thousand years old. He too was  
killed last year--" He  
snorts, "--no big loss. You're lucky, my little bird. I'm glad he  
could never hurt you."  
Suddenly Raven twitches, a scent twisting through the air, one he  
recognizes. "David...who..."  
"Raven, what's wrong?"  
"Someone...he smells like human, but like you, too..." Raven  
looks worried.  
David freezes, a look of glacial fury crossing his face. "He's  
an enemy, little bird. Come with  
me, we can't stay here." He stalks off quickly, and the boy scrambles  
to keep up, grasping one of the  
loops on the back of David's coat.  
"David--wait, who is he?"  
"He would've been my brother, if he hadn't been so damned  
*human*..." The vampire growls.  
"He was a halfling until they killed Max. He and the other two  
halflings reverted."  
"Oh." Raven struggles along, then thumps into David's back as he  
stops suddenly.  
"See him...the one with black hair, with the girl?"  
The boy peers over the crowd. "Those two?"  
"Yes."  
"So as long as they don't see you, we're ok?"  
"Yes, don't worry. But I need you to know these things so you  
don't get hurt."  
"Who's the kid with them?"  
"Oh, him...he wouldn't have joined us anyway." David snorts  
irritably.  
Quite suddenly Raven thumps into someone's back. The smell is  
unflatteringly human, and it  
smacks him in the nostrils with a quick one-two punch. The person  
turns around, all teenage bluster in  
camoflague and a red bandana holding back his hair. He is about to  
give Raven a verbal whaling, until  
he sees who is behind him.  
"Jesus fucking christ, it's *you*...!"  
Seconds seeming ageless, Raven sees a long, silver blade pulled,  
and a hand shooting forward.  
He snarls with lusty rage and strikes back, his newly-clawed hands  
shredding whatever they touch.  
"Raven! Raven, stop!"  
"Eddie! Get over here, asshole!"  
"Shit, shit, shit..."  
Flashing white teeth over a tawny, unprotected face, snapping and  
chawing, desperate to get a  
good hunk of human flesh. Raven feels the pain of the knife plunging  
between his ribs, but ignores it  
with David's honorable guarantee--you will heal. So many are  
fighting, too many arms and legs and  
necks and teeth and the unmistakable stench of frightened human, and  
somewhere, somewhere safe,  
the faintest whiff of vampire, his kin and kind. Raven claws his  
attackers, bites and tears, struggling to  
get through.  
"C'mon, little fucker. Get back here--!"  
Someone grabs him by the neck and *pulls*, and god that hurts,  
and something wet is hurled  
across his back and the agony shatters his resolve. That hurts, that  
is real pain, and that will not heal,  
and he knows it. Now he is frightened, and the scent of vampire is  
too confused, coming from all  
directions. Where is David? Is he safe? Who is this man holding  
him?  
"Let go of me! Let go!" Raven struggles violently, kicking and  
yowling. The human is strong,  
but *he* is a vampire, *he* is immortal, *he* is evolution's rightful  
heir. He feels a surge of great and  
preternatural strength fire through him, and he pulls free and  
*bolts*, straight down the boardwalk,  
ducking and diving the frightened humans, as far as he can get. He  
makes it to the cliff, taking a literal  
flying leap, though diving too much as whatever liquid--acid? Holy  
water?--was poured on him burns  
further, sapping his strength.  
When he returns to the cave he is exhausted, in pain. He smells  
old scents, vampires, dust,  
blood, chinese food. But no David. With a soft whimper he collapses  
on the floor. His trust is broken,  
sawed into rough, uneven halves and quarters. He feels it is his  
fault, and now he is alone, again.  
But David is a clever, centuries-old vampire with more than one  
trick up his leather sleeve, and  
he is alive. He returns as well to the cave, tired but unhurt. What  
greets his eyes rips at his ichorous  
heart even more than the deaths of his brothers. His one second  
chance, his little bird, so viciously  
wounded, helpless as a baby sparrow in the dirt. He kneels and gently  
prods the prone figure.  
"Raven? Raven, wake up, it's me."  
The faintest sliver of green eyes tinged black with pain. He  
hisses through uncontrolled fangs.  
"Raven..." He cradles the lost boy, careful of the burns. With  
time--much time--they may heal,  
but the scars will be a permanent reminder. To the boy, of his  
battle; to David, of his failure. "Oh, little  
bird I'm sorry. I will strike them down...tear their hearts to  
pieces."  
"David..." comes a breathless, toneless rasp, "David...it  
hurts..."  
"Yes." The edge is brutal, knifelike. "It is Holy Water.  
Deadly sometimes. One of a  
vampire's true weaknesses. It burns and saps your strength. It takes  
much time to heal."  
"David?"  
"Hm?"  
"Did I get him?"  
"Yes. You got two of them, in fact, in your fury. You are  
strong, little bird. You will grow  
stronger. You killed a guard, and the bastard who attacked you. I  
could not catch the others. Oh,  
Raven...I'm glad you came back. I thought you were gone..."  
"I...was scared...thought you'd...be here."  
David nuzzles his companion gently, a rasp of soft blonde stubble  
on pallid skin. "Come little  
bird...the night may be young, but you must rest." Carefully David  
lifts the boy with strength belied  
by his gaunt figure, and places him gently on a bed. Raven whimpers  
as his burns pull and twist, and  
David winces in sympathy. He has been burned before--he does not wish  
it on anyone, even humans.  
He pulls off the blood-soaked t-shirt, the boots and socks, and  
gently lays a blanket over the  
semi-conscious young vampire.  
"David..."  
"Yes, little bird?"  
"Will they follow us?"  
"They can't. We flew."  
"Oh. Right...but how can we--"  
"Hush. Your concern right now should be to rest and heal  
yourself. We may be fighting  
sometime very soon."  
"Ok...good--uh, night--David."  
"Good night." He smiles faintly, and Raven relaxes more deeply  
into the bedcushions, asleep  
almost immediately. 


End file.
